Airline Biz Blog

Southwest and TWU to ask for a federal mediator

The Transport Workers Union and Southwest Airlines said Thursday they’ll ask the National Mediation Board for help on their negotiations.

The union told the airline earlier this week that it intended to do so because the two sides were stuck on the issue of pay increases. The airline said it would join in the increase.

The two sides have been talking a relatively brief nine months, but feel they’ve gotten far enough on other items and are stuck enough on pay that it was time to bring in a federal mediator.

Here’s the message sent members from the TWU Local 555 negotiations team:

According to our economist, Dan Akins, the cost of living has increased an average of 4.6% so far this year (January 2008-September 2008) and increased an average of 3.1% over the last three years.

TWU Local 555 is proposing that pay steps increase a minimum of 4% annually over a three year contract. We have been careful to balance the needs of our Members without losing sight of our responsibility to our Customers and our airline and our proposed wage increases are fair and reasonable.

We are disappointed that the Company proposed a wage increase of 3% the first year of the contract and then ranging from 1% to 3% thereafter which clearly does not allow our Members to keep pace with the rising cost of living. We have emphasized to the Company that many of our Members are struggling, and none of the pay steps have increased since 2005.

Southwest spokesman Beth Harbin had this to say:

Filing for mediation is part of the negotiations process, and we’re confident that this step will help us get to a resolution on remaining issues.

I’m sure you know that this contract became amendable on June 30, 2008, and we began talks with the union’s negotiating team six months before that on Jan. 15, 2008. We’re proud to say that the negotiating teams have reached Tentative Agreements on the majority of articles.

They have most recently been focused on Article 28, which is wages. We are just a few percentage points apart in our offer for future pay increases and are confident we’ll get to a resolution soon.

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Terry Maxon writes about items of interest to travelers and the aviation community.